Cheers to the weekend!

This weekend is the final leg into Barbados’ Crop Over festival. Differently from Trinidad’s Carnival which is a pre-Lenten celebration, Crop Over holds its roots in history where slaves would celebrate the end of working the sugar cane fields as the “crop was over.” Today there are numerous cultural events and parties leading up to Monday’s Kadooment Day. This is a carnival where revelers will dance behind trucks blaring music and if they have done it right, will be exhausted as they reach the final stretch along Spring Garden Highway. One should be tired from weeks of balancing partying and work. For visitors, it may be the end of a one or two week trip of extreme “feting” where one is leaving one party only to enter a next. Sleep is left to napping between events (again, if you’re doing it right), and meeting new friends along the way.

I am missing the entire Crop Over season this year and while I have made it a point to go for at least a few events every year for nearly two decades, I just couldn’t plan for it this time. It was for a good reason so I am not upset and I am living vicariously through all of my friends that message me with pictures of their half-empty to empty rum bottles, drunken texts, and the warm-hearted “I miss uuuuu” messages.

To feel like I am not completely missing out on what’s happening during Crop Over, I still drink my rum and listen to a ridiculous amount of soca music. I won’t get into the details of what soca is as music should be enjoyed first, and studied later. More important, there are quite a few songs that are rum-themed or in the least, mentioned. Honestly I can’t count the amount of drinking songs there are in the Caribbean but trust me, there’s a lot!

Tonight I will enjoy a Mount Gay rum punch (or four) as I will be celebrating Crop Over Friday in spirit. I’m already in the mood but here are a few songs that will make the rum drinking just a little more fun.

Marvay – Survive the Weekend

“Twelve party straight, three days before the feting done, I cya (can’t) believe, from Friday I drinking rum…”

Ian Webster – Wukkup & Rum

“Ain no special reason why I need to have fun, all I need is wukkup and rum.”

Lil Rick – All is Rum

“Massive, let we drink the stress away, put your drinking vessel in the air, everybody get a drink with me.”